thought Edwidge Danticat wrote one of the better pieces in understanding what the average immigrants struggle is like when they come to America. In his piece, “New York Was Our City on the Hill”, he begins with the news that his parents had to leave him and his family at an early age because they were trying to make their lives better. Immediately this drew me in to the story because I have a soft spot for anything other than good things happening to children. He then even after he and his siblings were able to join his parents in America, both parents worked excruciatingly long hours, and were extremely underpaid. In my opinion, this gave the reader a clear insight as to what an immigrant must face on a daily basis, and the struggles then endure just to live in our country; this poor mother wasn’t even able to admit herself to the hospital even when the doctor highly recommended it, due to lack of health insurance. What saddens me is that in the recent years citizens of this country have been saying terrible things about immigrants and their rights, or lack there of, to be here. I never understood, and possibly never will understand why people were so angry with immigrants, because it wasn’t like they were lazy people who were sight-seeing over here. These people came to our country, of which we claim has open arms, in search of a better life for themselves and their families, and quite frankly I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think this short essay has the ability to make any reader see what an average immigrant endures, and change their arrogant ways of thinking. “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” by Suki Kim was an interesting story, and had a different point of view being that this girl and her family were very wealthy in Korea until her father “lost everything overnight”. It’s possible it is more difficult for a person to go from being extremely wealthy to dirt poor, rather than if they were poor their whole lives, simply because if you always struggled, you would never know what you were ‘missing’. “Nowhere Man” by Pico Iyer was the most difficult for me to understand his main concept. At first I was under the impression that he enjoyed living his life not being rooted in any particular place; however as his story continued, for instance at the very end he states, “But there are some of us, perhaps, sitting at the departure gate…who neither feel the pain of separation nor the exultation of wonder…who go down to the baggage carousel and watch our lives circling, circling, circling, waiting to be claimed”, I was under the impression that he was actually empty inside, and longed for that connection with others.